Blue Valentine (movie)

In director Derek Cianfrance's previous feature, "Blue Valentine," pretension found itself in a stern deadlock with dramatic honesty. Thanks to the performance of Michelle Williams, opposite the flashier, more contrived flourishes of Ryan Gosling, the results were worth seeing.

Now, however, Cianfrance has stepped up with "The Place Beyond the Pines," a more sprawling and ambitiously structured story, again co-starring Gosling. It is a better, more fully felt and moving picture than "Blue Valentine." Gosling and co-star Bradley Cooper have stepped up as well, finding the value in interacting as well as the quiet isolation of men in crisis.

Beyond the sappy cards and seemingly endless rows of heart-shaped chocolate boxes, there are, indeed, some stylish ways to celebrate the woman in your life this Valentine's Day. Win points in the romance department by moving beyond grocery store floral...

In the late '80s a thunderbolt of inspiration struck Jack Valenti, longtime chief of the Motion Picture Assn. of America: What if his organization got rid of the X rating, besmirched by years of misappropriation by hard-core exploitation films, and...

As the last publicists, filmmakers and reporters made their way out of Park City, Utah, on Sunday and turned the land back over to its rightful owners (snowboarders and ski bums), we decided to take a look back at the 11 days just passed at the 2011...

In writer-director Christopher Nolan's sci-fi thriller "Inception," Leonardo DiCaprio portrays a dream-time cat burglar who smuggles ideas in and out of people's minds. But on Tuesday, many Oscar prognosticators felt that "Inception" itself had gotten...

"The King's Speech" dominated the Oscar nominations on Tuesday morning, earning 12 nods including best picture and best lead actor for Colin Firth as King George VI, who battles to eradicate his stammer before he unexpectedly takes the throne.
Joel and...

We've had Johnny and June in "Walk the Line," Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda's grouchy old-timers in "On Golden Pond" and real-life marrieds Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton bickering their way through "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
But...